Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Teach Us to Sit Still seemed
like an appropriate title for a book to read on the flight from London to
Sydney a couple of weeks ago. The book, written by Tim Parks (a successful
author who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel, Europa) turned out to be an even better
choice than I had expected. The book provided me with a timely reminder of the
benefits of Vipassana meditation. When I became too tired to read, I put on my
eye mask and spent a couple of hours observing the sensations arise and pass
away. That is something that I should do more regularly.

Tim has a delightfully dry sense of humour, which he has
used to good effect in this book to tell the story of how he overcame severe
pelvic pain that had made his life miserable. The medical profession was unable
to find the cause of his problem, but Tim found that ‘paradoxical relaxation’ helped.
This technique involves calmly identifying and observing tension without trying
to relax it; the paradox is that the muscles eventually relax themselves.

Tim’s massage therapist told him that ‘paradoxical
relaxation’ had some similarity to Vipassana meditation and he decided eventually
to attend a Vipassana course.
Although his immediate problem was cured, Tim felt that there was much work
still to be done – predators ‘prowled the borders of the small haven of
comfort’ he had staked out.

Tim approached Vipassana with irreverent scepticism, but
this did not prevent the experience from having a profound impact. I want to
focus here on the impact it had on his desire to continue to be a successful
author.

At one point in his first meditation course, Tim is
reflecting on the relationship between novels and life. He notes that the
novels that ‘most accurately, intensely and wonderfully’ imagine life tend to
keep us away from life: ‘If it is life we want, we put the book down’. This
leads him to consider his own thought processes:

‘First the emotion, then the excited
reflection on emotion, attempting to divert it from its initial function, to
enroll it in my career project, to turn it into smartness and writing’.

During his second meditation course Tim accepts that the
time has come to face up to ‘simply being here, instead of taking refuge in
writing about being here’. He comes to consider the possibility that his former
illness might be a consequence of his successful writing career:

‘Nor was it unthinkable that the strange pains I had been
feeling had in some way to do with all those years sitting tensely, racking my
brains over sheets of empty paper, building up hopes, rejoicing over some small
achievement, overreacting to setbacks and disappointments. And it was true that
if you placed yourself, or your attention, as it were beside these pains, if you just sat together with them and let them
be, not reacting or wishing them away, they did in the end subside. Likewise
the thoughts’ … .

The passage goes on with Tim acknowledging that he had
sensed the first hints of equanimity. He concludes:

‘All you have to do now is stop writing … and you’ll have
clinched it. You’ll have changed forever’.

When Tim tells the meditation teacher, John Coleman, that he
is thinking of giving up his writing career, Coleman responds:

‘You know a lot of people come to these retreats and get it
into their heads they should retire to a monastery or something. I can’t see
why’.

Tim didn’t think that response was helpful; it didn’t
resolve the conflict that he saw between word mongering and experiencing life.

So, how did Tim resolve that conflict? Well, he obviously didn’t
stop writing. He has written a couple of other books since writing Teach Us to Sit Still, including the
novel, Sex is Forbidden (first
published as The Server). And some of
the things he has written suggest that he still sees the potential for
conflict. For example in an article entitled ‘The Chattering Mind’, for the NYR Blog, Tim suggests that modern authors are obsessed with mental suffering and
impasse: ‘Slowly you get the feeling that only mental suffering and impasse
confer dignity and nobility’.

I have just read Sex
is Forbidden to see whether it sheds any light on the effect that meditation
had on Tim’s writing. This novel tells the story, in first person, of a rather naughty young woman who has
spent several months at a meditation institute
both as a meditator and as a voluntary helper (server) following a
traumatic experience. Despite segregation of sexes at the institute, the young
woman almost ends up in another relationship with an older man, after she
stumbles on his diary and reads it. The main character is likeable, the challenges
facing her are interesting and the story-line seems plausible. At the end,
however, I was left unsure of how well Tim had actually managed to capture what
might be happening in the mind and emotions of the young woman. (I went looking for
reviews by women, but the only review I found that attempted to deal with the
issue was by an opinionated man.)

The relevant point, however, is that while this novel is
focused on mental suffering it manages to end on a hopeful note. We know that
while the main character is unlikely to live happily ever after, her chances of
living a happy life have improved.

‘So has meditation
changed my writing? I’m not sure. … What I am talking about in a lot of my
books is this process whereby you get yourself into a position from which there
is no way out. Which is also a way of saying, the whole way you’ve structured
your mental life actually doesn’t fit the nature of reality, because when you
carry on in the way your map tells you to, you always end in a place on the
territory where there’s nowhere to go. A lot of life feels like that to me. The
different thing about The Server—and I was quite surprised about
this when I wrote the end of the novel—is that here there is a feeling that, if
nothing else, that period in the meditation retreat has helped these two people
to avoid one more catastrophe, one more dead end. And that the girl, if not the
man, has maybe moved on ever so slightly. She is not stuck, she seems able to
move forward. I was quite surprised by my optimism’.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

There were many highlights of our recent tour of Britain and
Ireland, but the visit to Northern Ireland will stick in my memory. Before we
went there I knew that it was now a safe place for tourists to visit, but I had
not grasped how much the conditions of life of the people who live there have
improved since the Good Friday agreement was signed 15 years ago.

My first surprise was that crossing the border from the
Republic to Northern Ireland was less noticeable than crossing from England to
Wales. If we had not been told to look out for a change in the colour of the
lines marking the edge of the road, we would not have known that our bus had
crossed the border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

As expected, you don’t have to drive far in Northern Ireland
before seeing evidence of division, with some communities displaying the Union
Jack and others displaying the flag of the Republic. There are also plenty of
murals, like this one, to let you know the feelings of the local communities.

However, people seem to be able to travel freely. Apparently
it has become common for Protestants living in Northern Ireland to take a drive
into the Republic. They have an incentive to do this because fuel is cheaper in
the Republic. That is probably attributable to some kind of regulatory
distortion, but it is nevertheless a hopeful sign when people put aside their
prejudices to take advantage of economic opportunities.

Ronan McNamara, our local tour guide in Derry, or
Londonderry (if you prefer), gave us a message of hope. He suggested that the
vast majority of people in Northern Ireland now just want to get on with living
their lives and leave sectarianism behind.

I was also surprised to learn that the unemployment rate in
Northern Ireland is now below the average rate for the UK. (The unemployment
rate for NI was 6.9% in June 2013, compared with 7.7% for the UK. The
corresponding figure for the Republic was 13.5%, reflecting the uneven impact
of the global financial crisis.)

We saw some symbols of hope in both Londonderry and Belfast.
The Peace Bridge is a
cycle and footbridge across the River Foyle in Derry, which opened in
June 2011, to improve access between the largely unionist 'Waterside' and the
largely nationalist 'Cityside'.

The so called ‘peace walls’, built to separate the
Protestant and Catholic communities in Belfast, are still very much in evidence
and the gates are still closed at night. But the black cab drivers take
tourists to see the murals on both sides of the walls. We were encouraged to
add our messages to one of the walls.

I was impressed by the message left by Angus from Australia,
last year.

The message I left would come as no surprise to regular
readers of this blog.

Our trip to Northern Ireland has left me with a somewhat different
perspective on the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. I had to visit Belfast before
I fully appreciated that the ‘troubles’ were the last smouldering embers of
ongoing sectarian violence that has infected the British Isles since the
dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII. It will help me
to make the point if I present a couple more photos taken in Northern Ireland in
historical context, relating to other things we saw as we travelled around the
British Isles. My efforts in doing this
have been aided by the gruesome stories of warfare that our travel director,
Paul Murphy (from Glasgow), told us as we travelled though the peaceful
countryside of Britain and Ireland.

The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey are an appropriate place to
begin. Before Glastonbury Abbey was closed by Henry VIII in 1539 it was one of
the largest and most famous English monasteries. The dissolution of monasteries combined
revenue-raising with religious persecution as buildings and other assets were
seized by the Crown, to be sold off or leased, while monks and nuns were
dispersed.

Now, fast forward to 1623 and the reign of James I. Although
James was tolerant toward loyal Catholics, he decided that the best way to subordinate
the people of Ulster (which was the last part of Ireland resisting British
rule) was by colonising the area with Protestants from England and Scotland.
Part of this colonisation involved building the heavily fortified city of
Londonderry, so named because of investment from the City of London. The city
walls are still intact despite the siege of 1689.

Before we can discuss the siege of Derry we need to skip
past the English civil war, Oliver Cromwell’s suppression of the Royalists in
Ireland, which led to confiscation of land owned by Catholics in Ireland, and the
restoration of the monarchy which brought James II, a Catholic, to the throne. Although
James II showed some degree of religious tolerance, influential members of
Parliament became increasingly concerned about his religious beliefs and his
close ties with France. So they brought about the Glorious Revolution of 1688,
which involved Parliament inviting William of Orange to ascend the English
throne as William III of England, jointly with his wife, Mary II
of England.

I have previously suggested on this blog that the Glorious
Revolution was an important milestone in replacing tyrannical government
because it was followed by the Toleration Act of 1689, which gave formal recognition
to religious pluralism and was an important step toward giving equal rights to
followers of all religions. That is still my view, but some of my ancestors (those
from Ireland) would have had some difficulty in accepting that the revolution
brought about by William and Mary was glorious.

James II fled to Ireland and assembled his supporters to
begin undoing the Protestant land settlement. In April 1689 he presented
himself before the walls of Derry - and so the siege began. After 105 days,
however, Williamite ships allowed supplies into the starving town. William of
Orange subsequently met James at the Battle of the Boyne and defeated him. That
is why we see William III portrayed prominently in this mural in a Protestant
area of Belfast.

Our story continues as the Williamite forces went on to
control Ireland, with the exception of Limerick, which they lay siege to. The
Jacobite forces surrendered after the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, promising
religious toleration among other things, on the Treaty Stone in the photo
below.

That might have been a good place to end this story, but the
Irish parliament, representing landowners who subscribed to the (Anglican)
Church of Ireland, dishonoured the Treaty. While Catholics were not prevented from
practicing their religion, a series of penal laws prevented them from owning
land, practicing law, holding public office and bearing arms. Catholics and Calvinists
were also required to pay tithes to support the Church of Ireland.

In 1745, on the other side of the Irish sea, the Jacobites
led by Bonnie Prince Charlie attempted to take back the English throne. His
army had some initial success, but he failed to obtain the English and French support
needed to beat government forces. His army was massacred on the battlefield at
Culloden, shown below.

In the aftermath of Culloden, the Scottish Highlands were
disarmed, Gaelic was banned and the wearing of tartan was made a hanging offence
for a time.

Discrimination against Catholics began to diminish from
about 1760 onwards, in response to agrarian unrest in Ireland and the emergence
of a reforming minority, urging greater respect for individual rights, among those
in power in London. The process of granting equal rights to people of all religions
occurred gradually in a series of steps and is still not complete. The Church
of England still has links to the state and while citizens of the United Kingdom
have freedom of religion, the sovereign does not have that freedom.

One of the things I think we can learn from the history of
the British Isles is that freedom of religion and respect for individual rights
emerged as a kind of stalemate from a long series of conflicts. Those in power
gradually came to accept that it was counterproductive to try to force people
to change their beliefs or to discriminate against them because of their
beliefs. They came to accept that suppression just led to rebellion at a later
stage.

When we travelled around the British Isles we saw a great
deal of evidence that this was a very violent part of the world only a few
hundred years ago. But without visiting Northern Ireland, this evidence would have
seemed as though it had been planted for the benefit of tourists. Britain and Ireland
are, for the most part, incredibly peaceful places where the vast majority of people
are obviously willing to ‘live and let live’. It was good to learn that there are now strong grounds to hope that Northern Ireland will be able to stay on track to become as
peaceful as the rest of Ireland and Britain.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

I returned to Australia last Saturday, just in time to vote,
after having spent a month travelling around Britain and Ireland. That means I had
the good fortune to miss the election campaign.

However, missing election campaigns is not always an unmixed
blessing. The last time I missed an election campaign, in 1983, when the Hawke
government was elected, the country seemed to change in my absence in ways that
I found difficult to understand. Prior to leaving Australia I think there was a
fairly common perception, which I shared, that Bob Hawke was a divisive figure in Australian politics. After I returned just a
few weeks later, it took some time for me to adjust to the fact that Hawke had
come to be widely viewed as a national leader, capable of bringing the nation
together to deal with difficult issues. The mood of the country seemed to have changed
while I wasn’t looking.

I don’t think I missed much by being absent during the most
recent election campaign - there doesn’t seem to have been any marked change in public mood. It was predictable that voters who were having doubts
in 2010 about the leadership offered by the old Kevin Rudd, would realize during
the campaign that the new Kevin was still the same person. It was also
predictable that people who were having difficulty bringing themselves to vote
for Tony Abbott prior to the campaign would not suddenly see him as offering
inspiring leadership. The issue was whether Tony would be able to demonstrate
during the campaign that he had learned how to keep his foot out of his mouth.

How much will the change of government change Australia?
There are some who argue that when the government changes, the country always
changes. Paul Keating famously put that view to voters in 1996, as his period
as prime minister was drawing to a close. I suppose some of the people who decided to
vote for John Howard would have disagreed with Keating’s warning, but others
would have actually wanted the country to change.

In my view, the Howard government did not actually change
the country to a huge extent relative to the course that had been set by the Hawke
and Keating governments. The size of the federal government (measured in terms
of cash payments as a percentage of GDP) contracted from 25.6% in 1995-96 to
23.1% in 1999-00, and then rose again, peaking at 25.1% in 2000-01. The trend
toward greater centralisation of power in Canberra continued unabated. There
was a change of style and some change of emphasis – possibly including greater
enthusiasm for privatisation of government business enterprises - but the
direction of policies did not change to any great extent until the final term
of the Howard government.

In its final term the Howard Government introduced ‘work
choices’ in an attempt to further free up the labour market. The net result,
however, was one step forward and two steps backward. The reform encountered so
much political opposition that it helped Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard to gain
power and introduce tighter labour market regulations than had existed prior to
the Howard reforms.

In my view, the Rudd-Gillard-Swan governments changed the
country to a much greater extent than could reasonably have been anticipated in
2007, when Rudd came to power. As well as the change of direction in industrial
relations, the emphasis of policies turned towards redistribution of wealth as
opposed to wealth creation with the introduction of an additional tax on mining
profits. The change of style of government in the Rudd era – a prime
minister with delusions of infallibility announcing policy on the run – made
government seem chaotic. The Rudd-Gillard-Swan governments also brought about a
substantial expansion in size of government – cash payments rose from 23.1% of
GDP in 2007-08 to 26.1% in 2009-10. On the positive side of the ledger, the changes
to health policy are possibly having positive outcomes (but I haven’t seen the
evidence) and changes to education policy might also be positive. However,
these policy changes have occurred at the expense of further centralisation of
power in Canberra.

There seems to be a widespread expectation that the Abbott
government will cut back the size of government, but I’m not sure that view is
warranted. The government will probably reduce the number of federal public
servants, but when election promises of increased spending are taken into account it
seems unlikely that there will be a substantial reduction in government
spending.

It is possible that the new government could take action to
reform federal-state relations, by retreating from some policy areas that are
more appropriately dealt with by the states. However, I will not be holding my
breath waiting for that to happen. As noted a few years ago in my review of
Tony Abbott’s book, ‘Battlelines’, he
seems to be in favour of greater centralization of power in Canberra.

Perhaps the government will move on tax reform in its second
term of office. But the most likely outcome will be a higher rate of GST to
raise more revenue. If we continue to drift toward a European style welfare
state, we will need a European style tax system to fund it!

I am not sure that we can even expect the new government to
maintain policies favourable to free trade. Policies proposed with respect to
‘dumping’ suggest a lack of understanding of normal business practices and the
role of international competition in the economy.

The main change the Abbott government seems
likely to bring about is a return to more orderly government processes. In that
respect, the contribution of the new government could be quite similar to that
of the Fraser government in the 1970s, which brought to an end the chaos of the
Whitlam years. In fact, the more I think about it the more I think that, with
the exception of policies toward asylum seekers, the Abbott government could
end up looking quite similar to the Fraser government. There will be plenty of
talk about tough decisions, but I don’t think there is likely to be much
action.Postscript:I had intended to mention that I was prompted to begin thinking about this question by a post last week on Jim Belshaw's blog. Jim's post was entitled: 'What can we expect of a new Coalition Government?'

Emancipation

Welcome!

Welcome to Freedom and Flourishing. While you are here, why not take a look around and leave some comments.

There is a list of my most popular posts below. I am pleased that a post about characteristics of a good society, that I wrote in 2009, is still one of the most popular. That post captures some of the ideas about freedom and individual human flourishing that I think are most important.